The Spiked Wolf

by David Shiels

  They appeared to be around the same age as Claudia but they seemed to have been here for much longer than her, as they were extremely underweight and looked filthy. The woman had long dark, knotted hair and the man had bushy brown hair and a large beard. They both seemed to have been unwashed for some time. The man was comforting the woman as she continued to cry.

  Claudia slowly stepped into the room, hoping that they would not see her as she made her way to the other door. She did not want to be involved with these people, and she was not here to help anyone but was simply here to get herself out of this situation.

  “Oh thank the gods!” the woman jumped out of the man’s arms and ran towards the cell bars.

  “I thought no one would ever come to save us” the woman’s tears dried up and a smile appeared on her gaunt face.

  “I’m only passing through; I’m not here to save anyone.” Claudia explained bluntly, continuing her walk to the door.

  “But you can’t just leave us here!” The woman’s voice rose as she pleaded.

  Claudia stopped “But I don’t know who you are, I mean, look at the state of you! Would you trust yourself looking like that?”

  The man joined the woman at the cell door. “We have been here for weeks, they feed us once a day with a bowl of excretion and make us work long shifts, how do you expect us to look?!”

  “Look, I don’t really care-“Claudia was interrupted mid-sentence by the male, now talking in a much softer voice.

  “Listen, just flip that switch on the wall and our cell door will open, and then you won’t have to see us again”

  “So you can both attack me and steal my clothes and phone? Now if you’ll excuse me I have an escape to make.” Replied Claudia, in a smug way that would annoy the most placid of people.

  The woman placed her head between the bars and shouted “Yea, go on, I hope they rip you apart you red headed selfish bitch!”

  Claudia stopped and turned back towards the couple “excuse me, bitch, who are you to talk to me like that? You ugly piece of shit”

  Claudia walked towards the bars “Oh, touch a nerve did I?” said the woman in her own smug way that rivalled Claudia’s.

  Suddenly Claudia grabbed the woman’s hair through the bars and tugged at it. “I hope they tie you to a table and make you spit out one child after another”

  The woman screamed at the top of her lungs “Guards! There’s an intruder in the prison cells!”

  Claudia quickly released her grip from the woman, intending to make a jolt for the door when the man quickly grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the cell.

  “No, get off me!” Claudia screamed, her face suddenly full of fear as she heard the sound of footsteps approach the room.

  “You’re in for it now!” Laughed the woman in a crazed hysterical manner, she then spat on Claudia’s face and continued laughing.

  A large man then entered the room carrying a fire axe; he resembled the men she had encountered earlier. His face was full of disgusting warts and boils.

  He stopped and looked towards the struggling trio. He drooled on the floor then readied his axe.

  Claudia continued to attempt fiercely to release herself from the man’s grasp as the large man ran towards her with his axe lifted above his head. He let out a large battle cry.

  Using all of her might, desire, dreams and hatred Claudia pulled herself away from the impending impact of the axe, pulling the man’s along with her, his face squeezing tightly between the bars. The rough texture of the metal caused his face to bleed at both sides.

  The man let out a howl as the fire axe made contact with his small, frail arm. It tore his whole forearm straight off with a clean cut. He fell to the cell floor holding the stub of his arm, the woman followed and tore off some of her cloth to try and tend to the wound.

  Claudia lost her balance after escaping the clutches of the now disabled man, but she wasn’t done. Pure energy was still pumping through her body. She instantly regained her balance and made a run for the door. The large man gave chase, screaming incoherent phrases.

  Claudia ran down a seemingly endless hallway full of prison cells; full of prisoners far too weak to ask for her help, far too weak to even cry.

  At the end of the hallway was a door. The large man was so close behind Claudia that she had no time to think about which way it opened or whether it was open or closed.

  Claudia rammed her shoulder hard into the door; she felt a large bludgeoning pain and rebounded dartingly off of it, landing hard onto the stone floor. She sharply looked up to see the large man holding the axe above his head, ready for the execution.

  He bore the axe hard down upon Claudia; she reacted instinctively and flopped back a few feet; the axe went between her legs and missed; the axe shattered as it made impact with the floor, shards of the axe slashed at Claudia’s arms and chin.

  She tried to quickly shuffle under the man’s large legs but he reached down and grabbed her head with one arm and lifted her high into the air, effortlessly.

  Claudia kicked at his and scratched hard at his large hand but he seemingly felt no pain.

  He tightened his grip on her head, intending to crush her head until she died.

  Her vision began to fade as she felt her skull slowly crush inwards, it would eventually snap and her brain would be destroyed.

  The man’s face was one of intense joy as he saw the life slowly fade out of his victims face.

  As Claudia began to black out; a similar feeling after drinking one too many, a strange voice called from the back and the large man slightly released his grip.

  The last thing she saw before losing her consciousness was two other men of a similar size approaching them.

  Rejection

  The third day in Brazil came and they left the small dirty village. The air was much cooler and rain made a much needed appearance a few times throughout the day, sometimes extremely heavy and sometimes just light showers. It made the road harder to navigate and sometimes made it feel like they were stuck in the mud but it made everything else much more bearable, and the girls mood was increased which resulted in the singing being resumed, much to the dismay of Trimple.

  Trimple adjusted the dials on the radio, hoping to find better sounds to pollute his ears with.

  The previous night’s emergency broadcast played on each station, still on its endless loop. Trimple had a very bad feeling. The girls felt it too. The singing had stopped. They all placed it to the back of their minds and focused on the mission ahead.

  The car was quiet for a while and the drive was uneventful as the road became slightly more civilized. When the sun set and the sky turned a light shade of red they reached their destination; the small village of Waksando.

  Waksando was much nicer than all of the other villages combined and people looked and acted more like proper human beings, the houses were small and were made out of brick, unlike the other villages which were wooden. The village was so small that every building was visible from the entrance of the village. The entire town was surrounded by thick dense forest and surprisingly there was quite a large amount of people in the town; judging by the amount of cars parked all over, it appears that a lot of guests had recently arrived.

  The first task of the team was finding a place to stay, they tried the local hotel but it was currently fully booked due to the recent influx. Moo tried to wave her money around but these people seemed less impressed with her act.

  The three of them stood in the cool outdoors; they wanted to visit the mansion tonight while their enthusiasm was at its peak.

  “I was not expecting it to be so busy, we need to find a place where we can shoot our episode” Moo walked up and down the thin walkway with her hand on her chin, thinking hard.

  “Seeing as the hotely is full maybe we could ask one of the residents to let us stayey?” Ming posed the question towards Moo, excitement in her eyes.

  “These people are totally not going to let us stay in their house Ming, we
will just have to wrap up the shoot as quickly as we can and then get on outta here, perhaps even sleep in the car” Trimple was always the one who was realistic with his approach.

  As the team discussed their options many of the cars that had arrived just before them were all beginning to leave the area, most likely due to their being no place to stay. Moo wondered if it was to do with what they had heard on the radio; she was more excited to return to the city than explore the haunted mansion.

  “Guys” squealed Moo in a frantic high pitched wail, “We will just have film the introduction in the street, check out the Mansion, then drive straight back to the city! Maybe we can catch footage of whatever is happening back there as well.

  Trimple sighed and went to collect his camera from the car. While he did this the girls went into the hotel with their make-up bags and toiletries, the owner had said that for a price they may use their facilities, but the girls could feel that he really resented letting them in.

  As Trimple pulled his camera from the car a woman who appeared to be in her sixties wearing a long black dress walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “You cannot use that here”

  She had a raspy voice; she sounded like a woman who had smoked for twenty more years than her age.

  “We are only filming a television show”

  “I do not care” The woman's hand wrapped tighter around Trimples shoulder, he felt blood escape his skin.

  “Listen lady, we don’t want any trouble here, we will be filming at the old mansion, and your village will not be in any of our footage”

  The woman released her grip and backed off.

  “You are NOT to go anywhere near that place”

  She lunged for the camera in Trimples hand tackling him to the ground; he fell sharply onto the back of his head as she swiftly mounted on top of him and pulled at the camera. She was taller than him by a few inches and of a bigger build, probably from years of performing manual work in her village. Trimple pushed at the woman with his free hand but she would swat it away with her stronger hand, each strike felt like it could break a finger.

  A man walking through the street with a torch, lighting the oil staffs that would light up the village as it grew darker; the only light that would appear in this ageless village without electricity, noticed the commotion and skipped over.

  “Grandma!” the man grabbed the woman off of Trimple, her hand still attached to the camera, he was strong enough to pull both of them of them to their feet. His body was extremely muscular; he was covered in tribal wolf tattoos. Neither person released their grip on the camera.

  “Look! they have the machinery of the devil! They must be cast out of this place immediately!” She aimed at clawed hand at Trimple’s face but missed. The man grabbed the woman’s hand causing her to weaken her grip on the camera, one finger at a time, as if playing the ‘this little piggy went to market’ game.

  “You need to leave” The man’s voice was so cold that Trimple felt a chill.

  “We are totally harmless people, we will not cause you any harm”

  “You already have! That device you carry has caused nothing but trouble to our sacred village, it is the reason that you outsiders began coming here, and today alone we have seen and sent off over 50 of you! You are not welcome here, not you nor your money”

  “But the hotel…” Began Trimple, his voice quaking, but the woman interrupted him “The hotel is for guests of our people only, that owner is just a greedy piece of filth”

  She turned to the younger man.

  “We will need to make the roads more dangerous, my grandson” The woman stroked the man’s biceps, out of admiration if anything.

  Trimple took back his initial impression of everyone seeming more civilized here. They were even worse than the previous villages; at least their tolerance could be bought with currency.

  “Girl power! We are so ready to haunt some mansion! Woo hoo”

  Moo jumped down the steps from the hotel, kicking and punching the air, followed by Ming. They were now wearing matching Kimonos; Ming’s was bright blue, while Moo’s was a dark shade of red. They straight away noticed the look of confrontation in Trimple’s face and eyes.

  “I assume these dirty girls are with you” snapped the woman, eyeing up the two girls.

  “Whoa that was a bit harshy, we barely know you!” gasped Ming, putting her hands to her mouth, acting shocked.

  Moo noticed the blood on Trimple’s shirt then saw the scratch marks on his face.

  “Oh Trimple, did this old lady make you bleed?” She smirked, and then turned to the old woman. “So what is your problem?”

  The old woman and the man repeated almost word for word what they had said to Trimple. Ming and Moo tried to argue their case but could not restrain from giggling at the woman at every opportunity when she spoke, her deep voice tickling their sense of humour. As they spoke Trimple noticed that in all of the windows of the houses there people looking outside, the faces he could see clearly all had terrified expressions on them, this prompted him to make his decision:

  “Let’s leave” He sounded defeated.

  “I did not comey all this way and sleepy in a dirty old shed to just turn back empty handed Trimpley!” Ming’s voice did not change pitch; shouting was never one of her strongest talents.

  “Things will get violent if you are not gone within ten minutes” The man turned his back to the girls and casually continued his work of lighting the staffs. The man’s voice still lacked any emotion.

  The old woman faced Trimple, he slightly recoiled at this, and then she spat on the floor near to his feet and walked off. Trimple placed the camera back in the car.

  “Get in girls”

  Moo got into the car without any hesitation.

  “Moo, what are you doing?” Ming placed her head inside the car.

  “They said we must leave the village, so we will. But they never said anything about not going to the mansion” Moo gave another of her big smirks.

  Trimple said nothing but knew that was not true. They all got into the car and drove off out of the village. The place was now completely silent, the only sound was the burning embers which chased around the staffs that gave the village it’s only light.

  Death By Disobedience

  After turning the corner outside of the village Moo ordered Trimple to stop the car. He parked in a layby under dark trees which rendered the car invisible to anything other than a cat.

  The team gathered all of items they would require for filming, turned on their flashlights and walked off into the dense, dark, seemingly endless forest, their lights barely making a dent in the darkness that surrounded them.

  Trimple pulled out a map of the forest from his pocket and passed it to Moo. He had found it on the internet, it was the only map of the area that seemed to exist, everything about the village itself was a mystery but there was there some news stories about the mansion; he had heard that it was built by a wealthy Chinese businessman back in the 1930s. He had built it as a secret getaway but he and his family were slaughtered in there by an unknown butcher. The house was a secret for many years after but five years ago it was found by a couple who went adventuring in the Brazilian wilderness; the man claimed that his wife was killed by the ghost of a butcher and he was lucky to survive, other users on a massive internet message board topic had claimed they would search for the mansion themselves but no one ever returned to tell their story.

  Was it all a hoax? Trimple pondered this many times but if it was real then this location would easily make the girls television programme soar to the highest cloud in the sky, making him a rich little man.

  “We can start filming here” Announced Moo.

  Both girls stood side by side, quietly waiting for Trimple to begin filming, he always treasured these short, blissful moments, because when the camera rolls, the intensity is turned up to maximum.

  “Ok, filming in 3, 2, 1...GO”

  The blindin
g flashlight of the camera overwhelmed the darkness and the girls looked like angels basked in holy favour.

  “Hello! I’m Ming!!”

  “And I’m Moo!!”

  “What’s it to you!?”

  Both girls let out boisterous laughter, stamped their feet and hugged each other, Trimple signalled them to keep it down a little; they did not want the village to hear them.

  Moo calmed herself by taking exaggerated big breaths and performed the opening speech for the episode.

  “Welcome to the fourth! yes fourth! episode of Ming and Moo’s haunted adventures! Today we are deep in the wild lands of Brazil! it really is a savage place out here and the people just make it even more brutal! We are now currently just on the outside of the village of Waksando! We were not welcome in the racist village but that does not stop Ming and Moo from doing what they do! we are here to find a legendary haunted mansion…”

  Moo explained the story while Ming excitedly nodded throughout, looking frequently at the camera then back at Ming.